by Charles Todd
The boy shyly held out his hand and said, “How do you do, Uncle Ian?”
As Rutledge took the small hand in his, the boy added, “I rode the train. All the way from Scotland. And I was very good, wasn’t I?” He turned to look up at his grandfather. “And I shall have the pick of the litter of pups in the barn, if I mind my manners while I’m in London.”
His slight Scottish accent came as a surprise, though it shouldn’t have done. Rutledge searched for words of welcome and found none.
“And so you shall,” Trevor said, filling the awkward silence. As they turned to go, Trevor added, “Well, then. Are we to stay with you at the flat or with Frances at the house?”
The relief that this first encounter had gone off well enough was nearly intolerable. Yet after all his apprehension, the week’s visit had turned out to be an unexpectedly happy one. Nothing was said about the more recent past—nothing was said about anyone who had stayed at home, though Morag had sent him the Dundee cake she had made for him at Christmas in the hope that he might have come north after all. “It’s past its prime, she says,” Trevor warned him, “but the fault is no one’s but yours.”
Rutledge had taken it with apologies and promised to send Trevor’s housekeeper something in return.
He knew, none better, that Trevor refrained from saying that she would have preferred to see him, that she was getting no younger and still doted on him. The thought was there in Trevor’s eyes.
When Rutledge arrived at the Yard after settling his godfather with Frances, a patient Sergeant Biggin was waiting for him in his office. He rose as Rutledge walked through the door and wished him a good morning.
“There’s news?” he asked the sergeant. “Good—or bad?”
“It appears to be bad news,” Biggin reported. “We’d like to have you come with us, sir, and have a look at what we’ve found. It appears Mr. Teller’s clothing has come to light—on the back of a costermonger near Covent Garden. An alert constable spotted the man and is keeping him in sight.”
Rutledge said only, “I’ll drive,” and he led the way to his motorcar. As they turned toward Covent Garden, Rutledge asked, “Do the clothes appear to be damaged in any way? Torn? Bloodstains washed out?”
“No, sir, according to the constable they only appeared to be a little soiled from pushing a barrow through wet streets. But that was at a distance.”
They found a place to leave the motorcar and walked the rest of the way. Covent Garden was quiet, the frenetic life of the dawn fruit and produce market in the Piazza had finished for the day, only the sweepers busy cleaning up the last of the debris and gossiping among themselves, their voices loud in the silence after the morning bustle. The opera house looked like a great ship stranded on a foreign shore.
Sergeant Biggin found his constable on a street corner, his back to the doorway of a tobacco shop. He nodded to Biggin and then acknowledged Rutledge just behind the sergeant.
“Morning, sir. That tea shop down the street. The costermonger is in there. That’s his barrow—the one with the red handles—just outside.”
“Has he seen you?” Rutledge asked. The barrow wasn’t evidence. The man’s clothing was.
“I think not, sir. Wait—the shop door is opening—”
They watched as a heavyset man sauntered through the door, but instead of the light-colored suit of clothes that Jenny Teller had told the police her husband had worn to the clinic, and presumably out of it as well, he was wearing a pair of coveralls and Wellingtons, a flat cap on his head.
“Damn!” the constable said grimly. “Beg pardon, sir, but that’s him. The costermonger. But where’s his clothing?”
“He’s just sold it to someone else. Come on!” Rutledge strode swiftly down the street toward the tea shop. The costermonger looked up, and then his gaze sharpened as he recognized that one of the men bearing down on him was a uniformed constable, the other a sergeant, moving fast in the wake of a man in street clothes.
They could see the changing expressions on his face—alarm, the debate over whether to flee or stay where he was. Outnumbered, he chose to stay, bracing himself as Biggin said, “Good morning.”
Their quarry said nothing.
“I’ve been told that you were seen wearing different clothing earlier in the day,” Biggin went on. “We’d like to have a look at it.”
They could see the man weighing any profit he might have made against trouble with the police. He chose a middle course.
“What’s wrong with an honest man making a living out of old clothes that have come into his possession?” he demanded grudgingly.
“Nothing,” Biggin retorted. “Except they aren’t old, and it’s the gentleman who was once wearing those items that we’re interested in hearing about.”
“I know nothing about him. I found the suit of clothes in a neat pile by the river, just below Tower Bridge. I hung about, to see if anyone was to come along and claim them, and when no one did, I thought I ought not to look a gift horse in the mouth, as the saying goes.”
It was interesting, Rutledge observed, that the costermonger knew precisely which clothing the police were after. They would have been a windfall, worth as much as he might earn in a week’s time selling old clothes and boots and men’s hats. There had been no pretense of ignorance, no denials. It was possible he was telling the truth.
“And where would the items in question be now?” Biggin asked. The costermonger reluctantly answered, “I sold them to a gent in the tea shop. He fancied the cut of them, he said.”
The constable was already reaching for the door latch and disappeared inside the shop. He came out shortly thereafter with a known pickpocket, one Sammy Underwood, a well-spoken man of forty-five, who could pass for a gentleman in Teller’s suit of clothes. Rutledge had seen him at flat races, hobnobbing with rich punters and readily accepted in his pressed castoffs. A better sort of purse to pick there than the casual encounter at a street crossing.
Underwood demanded his own apparel back before he would consent to give up Teller’s clothing. The exchange made, he scuttled off before the police took an interest in his activities.
They spoke to the costermonger for another quarter of an hour, but he refused to change his story, although he claimed that he had not found shoes or hat with the trousers, shirt, and coat.
Sergeant Biggin turned to Rutledge. “A man doesn’t leap into the river wearing his hat and shoes.”
“For all we know, they were taken away before the costermonger found the rest of Teller’s belongings.”
Rutledge made a brief examination of the clothing. The labels had been removed.
The costermonger said quickly, “They were that way when I found them.”
“Yes,” Biggin retorted, “and the moon’s the sun’s daughter.”
“It’s true,” the man exclaimed. “I’ll swear to it, if you like.”
Rutledge tended to believe him, although the sergeant remained dubious. But if it wasn’t the costermonger—then who had taken the time to remove them? Someone intent on throwing dust in the eyes of the police? But if it hadn’t been for the vigilance of a constable, the clothing would have disappeared into the backstreets of East London, never to come to light.
“Ye canna’ find a man sae easily in different clothes,” Hamish pointed out.
To buy a little time, perhaps. Or travel.
In the end, the costermonger lost his sale, and Rutledge, after complimenting the constable for his good eye, left with a box under his arm containing what appeared to be Walter Teller’s clothing.
He went directly to Bond Street, and walked up and down, looking in shop windows. And then he saw what he was after. Grantwell & Sons specialized in dressing men who spent much of their time in the country, and displayed over a handsome chair in the window was a man’s suit of similar style and cut.
The shop was not busy at that hour, and Rutledge had the full attention of the owner. Bolts of fine cloth, trays of buttons and collars,
and an array of hats indicated a clientele with the resources and taste to dress well. Sammy Underwood had found himself a bargain.
Mr. Grantwell recognized his workmanship at once, though he deplored the missing labels and the condition of the items he was scrutinizing. After consulting his client book with its diagrams and lists and measurements, he identified the owner of the clothing.
Looking up, he asked quietly, “May I inquire why you are bringing these to me? Does it mean that some harm has come to Mr. Walter Teller?”
“We haven’t spoken to Mr. Teller. These were found in the possession of a costermonger, and we are trying to discover who they belonged to and how they came into his hands,” Rutledge answered him. It was the truth, as far as it went, and Mr. Grantwell could make of it what he chose.
The tailor nodded. “Indeed. Which of course explains their state. I must say, I’ve always admired Mr. Teller,” he went on. “In his book, he described his years in the field. It was quite shocking. Accustomed as he was to the life of a gentleman, it was remarkable how well he coped with hardship and deprivation. It is a tribute to his upbringing that he had the resources of spirit to fall back on.”
Rutledge was struck by Grantwell’s remark. Jenny Teller had also mentioned the terrible conditions of her husband’s fieldwork, but from a police point of view, Rutledge had considered them as a possible explanation for Teller’s disappearance: events that could have preyed on his mind years afterward. But now he could see another point of view—that if Walter Teller had deliberately disappeared, for whatever reason, he was better prepared than most to deal with a completely different way of life. Sleeping rough, for one, and for another, disappearing into the London scene not as Walter Teller, Gentleman, but as an ordinary man of the streets, invisible to police eyes. And a first step would have been altering his appearance—including ridding himself of the clothing that would identify him.
Hamish, silent for some time, told him, “If ye’re right, he’s no’ coming back.”
Grantwell was saying, “My father had the pleasure of serving Mr. Teller’s father before him, and I’d like to think we’ll serve young Master Harry in the years to come.”
He was fishing, an experienced angler in search of information.
And it occurred to Rutledge that a man’s tailor knew nearly as much about him as his servants, tidbits garnered in fitting sessions or the type of cloth ordered. Military, funeral, wedding, baptism, riding, a weekend in the country or a shooting party in Scotland, receptions at the Palace or a day at Ascot. His own tailor, solicitous of the gaunt, haunted man who walked into his shop a year ago in need of new suits of clothing for his return to the Yard, had asked if his wounds were healing well and if there was to be a happy event in the near future.
Rutledge hadn’t been able to tell him the truth, the words refusing to form in his mind, and so he had murmured something about no date had been set, and then barely heard what followed as the man prattled on about his own son’s marriage in the winter.
He said now, “Mr. Teller’s brothers are among your clients as well?”
“Yes, indeed. Mr. Edwin Teller has never enjoyed good health, but during the war he was engaged in work for the Admiralty, serving with distinction, I’m told. He was for many years a designer of boats and often traveled to Scotland to oversee their construction. He was given a private railway carriage. Captain Teller was severely wounded a few months before the Armistice. I understand there was some concern that he might never walk again.”
The shop door opened and an elderly man stepped in. A clerk hurried from the back of the shop to greet him, and Mr. Grantwell said to Rutledge, “Is there any other way I can help you? My next appointment . . .” His voice trailed off, and Rutledge took the hint, thanking him and leaving.
Now came the unpleasant duty of showing the items of clothing to Mrs. Teller, to confirm what the tailor had said, that they did indeed belong to her husband.
Leaving the sergeant with the box, Rutledge looked first in Teller’s private room, and then went to Matron’s sitting room.
There he found Jenny Teller in conversation with another couple. The atmosphere was unexpectedly tense. And as he opened the door, he’d caught a fleeting expression of relief on Jenny’s face, as if she were glad of the interruption.
Then her expression changed to alarm as she realized that it was Rutledge and not a member of Matron’s staff.
“Is there news?” she asked quickly.
“We haven’t found your husband, no,” he answered her.
She nodded. She was beginning to cope with her shock and her fear. Her husband’s disappearance, coming on the heels of his mysterious illness, had shaken her badly, her emotions raw, her tears not far below the surface. Now Rutledge could see changes in her face, a new strength and determination, an unwilling acceptance of the unacceptable: that her life had changed.
She turned to present her companions.
“My brother and sister-in-law. Edwin Teller and his wife, Amy.”
Amy Teller came forward with her hand outstretched. “Yes, Jenny was just telling us that the Yard had joined in the search. We’re very grateful.”
Rutledge was struck by Edwin’s wife. She was well dressed, attractive in the way she held herself, and had clear, intelligent eyes. But there was something behind that intelligence that spoke of worry, and a sleepless night.
Edwin, pale and showing signs of an even deeper fatigue, was a rather handsome man with an Edwardian beard. He stood to greet Rutledge and said, “We’ve just come back from searching, ourselves. I’m afraid we’ve had no better luck. I was hoping . . .” He shrugged eloquently, unwilling to finish the sentence in the presence of Walter’s wife.
Rutledge said, “You were looking for your brother. May I ask where?”
“We’ve only just got back,” Amy answered for her husband. “I thought he might have gone to the house in Essex. I know, Jenny disagreed, but I did look. Edwin and Peter went to Cambridge on the odd chance Walter had gone to see someone there. Edwin seemed to remember being told that a colleague had retired there.”
Jenny said, “I didn’t know that. Was it Percy? I thought he had gone back to Northumberland.”
“As it turned out, Percy is there for the summer,” Amy told her. “He wasn’t at home when Edwin called, he was meeting with someone at the college.”
Edwin said to Rutledge, “My brother was severely wounded in the war and is still recovering. He kept me company.”
It was an unnecessary clarification, and Amy spoke quickly to cover it. Indeed, Amy Teller appeared to answer for her husband almost as if uncertain that he knew his lines on cue.
“Susannah—she’s Peter’s wife, Inspector—drove to Cornwall, where the family often went on holiday. And Leticia, Edwin’s sister, was in Portsmouth, on the off chance that Walter might have”—she hesitated, glancing uncertainly toward Jenny—“where he might in his confusion have thought he was returning to the field.”
Edwin said, “We didn’t find him, but it was better than waiting for the police to get around to looking beyond London. And we might have got lucky. There’s always that.” He sounded defeated but smiled for Jenny’s sake and added, “We could count on Jenny here at the clinic, if the police came through.”
Jenny glanced from one to the other, and said, “Portsmouth was a waste of time. Leticia should have stayed here. Walter wouldn’t have left the country without telling me. He wouldn’t have left Harry without a word. No matter how confused he might be.”
“Do you know for a fact that he didn’t try to contact his son?” Rutledge asked.
“Well—no. But Mary would have sent word at once if he had.” Edwin replied.
“You should have informed the police before leaving London,” Rutledge told them. “It would have been helpful.”
“It wasn’t a Yard matter, then,” Amy answered. “And there’s something else. Jenny was just telling us that a watch is being kept on the river. Surely these
men could be put to better use searching the city. None of us can believe that Walter intended to do away with himself.”
Rutledge said, “I don’t think any of us can say with certainty what was in Teller’s mind when he left the clinic.”
Jenny Teller said stubbornly, “I’ve told you. Walter won’t kill himself.”
“With respect, Mrs. Teller, he hasn’t been seen for days. He hasn’t contacted you, he hasn’t come back to the clinic. Your husband’s family seems to feel he left London almost at once. I’d like to know why they were so certain of that?”
Edwin said, “Because we know him. Because he’s our brother.”
“And so you believed that he would visit a colleague—or his childhood holiday home—as soon as he came to himself again?”
Edwin said shortly, “Don’t be absurd. That’s not what we believed. It’s just—look, we were clutching at straws. We drove around London searching for him that first afternoon, and then we tried to think where he might go if he needed to talk to someone or remember where he was happy as a child.”
“You think, then, that he isn’t fully cured?”
“Damn it, I don’t know,” Edwin told him. “You’re the policeman, what do you think?”
“The evidence we have is circumstantial. He was able to walk out of the clinic. All well and good. He was able to dress himself presentably, so that he wouldn’t attract attention leaving with the afternoon’s visitors. That argues a certain awareness, an ability to think ahead. With respect, Mrs. Teller,” he went on, “he chose a time when no one was here to stop him or ask questions. That tells us he knew where he wanted to go and why, and perhaps it didn’t necessarily march with your opinion on the subject. And you, Mr. Teller, weren’t here pacing the floor, your sister wasn’t here demanding that something be done and quickly, making a nuisance of herself with the staff and the police. That’s what generally happens, you see. Instead, the family left London with almost indecent haste. Mrs. Teller, unable to reach any of you, was left to cope on her own. What, I wonder, was so urgent in your minds that it took precedence over every other consideration? And don’t talk to me again about old friends and childhood holidays.”
